Snarled
by Mitsuru Aki
Summary: For another sherlockbbc fic prompt: a fusion of BBC's Sherlock and Disney's Tangled. Sherlock wanted out of the tower. John just wanted a place to hide. It seems they both get a little more than they bargained for. S/J
1. Prologue: The Beginning

Author's Note: Another fic, oh noez! Written for sherlockbbc_fic on LJ, again! This fic is a fusion between BBC Sherlock and Disney's Tangled—basically with Sherlock as Rapunzel and John as Flynn, and their ages have been changed to match that of their character. There'll be all sorts of spoilers for Tangled, so if you haven't seen the movie, you probably should. Not only is it amazing, it may make some of the things in this story make sense. I'll update once a week, scene by scene, so we don't catch up to where I'm writing too quickly. I'm sure we will, because I'm a slow writer. Yes, there will be some eventual Sherlock/John. And um...I think that's it. For now, you get the prologue. Reviews are love? :D

Warnings: This is not going to follow Tangled's storyline to the letter, although it will be close. Be prepared. Disclaimers are in the profile.

~0~

_Once upon a—no, this isn't really one of those kind of stories, is it? No, not really, so…hmm. How to start? I could start at a couple different places, I guess, but that'd probably require a lot of backtracking and I'm not so keen on that. It might be best to say everything started before I ever came on the scene._

_I can only tell you what I've heard, because I certainly wasn't around when everything got started, but popular legend mentions something about a flower. A flower born from a ray of blessed sunlight and laden with magic, that was meant to be a gift to the world._

_Pure rubbish, of course. Flowers don't grow from sunlight alone, and the little magic the Kingdom has left resides at the Royal Court. The only magic I've ever seen is in those lanterns they send up once a year. And maybe one other thing, but we'll get to that._

_Point being, the first person to come across this flower was an old woman. She's not really that vital to the story, but she _is _the one who set this chain of events in motion, so I'll tell you about her. Some people believe she was a person of magic herself, and recognized the value of the plant. Don't ask me how. I'm not much of a botanist. Maybe it was the colour—a brilliant reddish-gold reminiscent of fire. Maybe it was just one of those things you know, without a reason. I don't know. But the old woman saw the flower and recognized it for what it was—power. When she sang a certain song, the petals of the flower glowed and restored her youth._

_Yeah, I know. Wonder how she figured that out. Trial and error, most likely._

_But she was fearful that if anyone else found the flower, she would lose her provider of immortality. So she never shared her discovery with anyone, instead using it to keep herself young and alive for centuries. However, despite her silence, rumours of a wondrous plant spread throughout the Kingdom._

_Things only go downhill for her from here. We'll get back to her in a moment._

_As time passed, a powerful Kingdom established itself and its rulers became much beloved to their people._

_Is that how you say it? 'Much beloved to'? Or 'unto'?_

_Anyway, the current rulers are the important ones here, and we poor folk didn't mind them so much. Then the royal family announced the Queen was with child and everyone thought that was brilliant, because the Kingdom would have an heir and round these parts we'll take any excuse to party._

_But the Queen became ill, really ill, and the Royal Physician himself was worried she wouldn't recover, let alone carry her child to term. So the King sent the Royal Guard on a quest to find a legend—a magical flower the colour of fire._

_See? Told you we'd get back to the old lady._

_She was there when the guards found the plant, out of sight, and seconds too late to attempt hiding it. She knew there was no way to stop the guards at the moment, but she resolved to get it back. At that point the flower was keeping her alive, and she needed it the way some men need drink._

_The old woman knew where they were going, so she stopped off at her house—well, it was more of a tower, really. You know the type: really tall, narrow, probably shouldn't be lived in. She had a little boy living there with her, about seven years old, so he could go to school. Her great-great-great-great grandson, or something like that. She told him she'd received a request from his father to act as a midwife, and she'd be gone for a while. He'd be fine as long as he didn't stray far and there was plenty of food. Then she left._

_She was gone for four weeks, skulking around the City probably, and waiting for an opportunity to reclaim what she considered rightfully hers. The Queen was miraculously healed with a potion made from the flower, and gave birth to a healthy baby boy with the longest, most beautiful ginger hair anyone had ever seen on a new-born baby. The King was so happy we had to celebrate some more, and nobody objected._

_No one knows how, but somehow the old woman got into the castle. And not just the castle, either, but the new heir's room. Some pretty shoddy security, if you ask me. First thing she did was sing and run her fingers through his hair, and wouldn't you know, it glowed the same way the flower used to. She probably thought she could just take a lock of his hair and carry it around for an eternity or two, but the moment she cut it, it died._

_Well okay, not _died_ died, but it stopped glowing as though a switch had been flipped. Right before her eyes, the red-gold colour faded to the darkest black, moving like ink from end to scalp._

_Clearly, that plan was out._

_If she couldn't take the hair, then she'd have to take the child, and she certainly wasn't above kidnapping. She took the heir and ran._

_When the King and Queen realized what happened, they sent the Royal Guards to scour the Kingdom for their son. No one ever found him._

_The old woman returned home and presented her however-many-greats grandson with the baby and told him it was his new brother. Said their mother had died giving birth and their father took his life in his grief. The boy cried for days, but he had no evidence to the contrary and eventually accepted her version of events._

_The Kingdom went into mourning, and the King and Queen and everyone released lanterns into the sky, hoping maybe someday they would guide their prince home. Every year on the day of his disappearance, you'll see lanterns in the sky. They're magic lanterns, I'm pretty sure, because I don't know what else would send them up into the sky like that. Not the most reliable method of bringing someone home, but it's the thought that counts, I suppose._

_So there was mourning for a lost son, mourning for lost parents, and generally a lot of mourning._

_Nine years later, the old woman died. I've heard lots of different versions on how, some of them more gruesome than others. Some say she was requested as a midwife elsewhere, a real request this time, and was attacked on the return journey home. Others say she was caught in a storm, and wandered off the path through the forest and couldn't find her way out again. Maybe both are true, maybe neither. The only thing I know for sure is her then-sixteen year old great-to-the-nth-power grandson had to identify her body, so if anyone knows the truth, it'll be him._

_He took over caring for the only family he had left, and if he was a little overprotective of the child, well, the boy was young and curious and had magical hair. In addition to raising a precocious nine-year-old alone, he probably had abandonment issues too, but that's another story. Don't tell him I said that. No really, don't. He won't like that. Sorry._

_Well, you can fast-forward another…almost nine years now, because nothing interesting happens in between, mainly because _I_ haven't arrived yet. I could tell you all about me—what I've been through, what I've seen, how many times I've nearly died—but you've probably figured out by now that this story isn't about me at all. Sad, I know._

_This story is about Sherlock. It's always about Sherlock._


	2. Chapter 1: The Tower

Author's Note: Sorry all, but these initial scenes are going to be pretty short until we get to about…scene 6, 7 or so. Basically until Sherlock and John run into each other. Hopefully you'll stick with me 'til then, yeah? Reviews are love? :D

Warnings: This is not going to follow Tangled's storyline to the letter, although it will be close. Be prepared. Disclaimers are in the profile.

-1-

"_[He] said, 'I want something that I want. Something that I tell myself I need, something that I want. And I need everything I see.'"_—_Something That I Want_ from the soundtrack of Tangled, by Grace Potter

-1-

"Sherlock?"

The young man in question froze in his meticulous examination of his bedroom's solitary windowsill, long fingers hovering over the unblemished wood.

"Come down and wash up, Sherlock. Supper's ready," his brother's voice floated up from downstairs.

His fingers trailed over the sealed shutters. "I'm not hungry," Sherlock said petulantly, and held his breath as he waited for a response.

For several long moments all he heard was silence, no sound at all, and then—

"Sherlock, come eat. Please don't make me say it again."

Sherlock huffed as though the words were a personal affront, stalked over to the curtains separating his room from the staircase, and ripped them apart with all the drama his seventeen years could muster. "_Mycroft_. I'm not hungry, and I certainly don't want to eat with you, so if you would cease—"

"I'd appreciate it if you would set the table," Mycroft interrupted calmly, as though his brother hadn't said a word. "You do remember where the bowls and silverware are, don't you?"

Scowling, Sherlock grabbed a few fistfuls of the _ridiculously_ long curly hair Mycroft wouldn't let him cut, not even to experiment on, and stomped down the stairs. The extra length of reddish gold trailed after him, whispering softly against the floor. "Just because I don't eat five meals a day doesn't mean I'm clueless as to where our kitchen crockery is, Mycroft," Sherlock snapped.

He brushed past his brother and yanked open the cabinet to retrieve two bowls, then snatched a section of his hair and threw it at the drawers across the kitchen. It snaked around the handle and he jerked it hard to pull it open. A second section grasped two spoons, and he wrenched them up and over to bang, skittering, on the surface of the kitchen table.

Mycroft sighed, his lips thinning. "I do wish you wouldn't do that."

Sherlock felt a smug flash of vindictive triumph as he smacked a bowl on the placemat in front of his brother. "Yes, well I wish you hadn't sealed my window shut," he retorted, throwing himself into his chair.

"It was necessary," Mycroft informed him with a disapproving gaze, as if he knew exactly what Sherlock had been up to earlier. "Clearly it was too much of a temptation, if your number of failed attempts to 'take a stroll' are any indication."

Sherlock grit his teeth. "Mycroft, all I wished—"

"You're not going outside," Mycroft cut him off with no hesitation. "We've discussed this. Several times, in fact. It's not safe."

"Just right outside," Sherlock argued, leaning forward in his seat. "Right here around the house. I won't go anywhere, I just want more soil samples from—"

"No," Mycroft said curtly, giving his brother a look that said his patience was wearing thin. "I can get you samples, if you desire, but you're staying right here."

"Mycroft—"

"It won't be enough," the older man continued, ladling soup out for both of them, "and you know it. Once you've looked over this area, your curiosity will get the better of you and you'll want to explore farther and farther out, Sherlock, and I'm afraid I can't let you do that."

"_Why_?" Sherlock exploded, slamming his hands on the table and ignoring his brother's reprimanding look. "_Why_ do I have to stay inside? It's so _boring_ here, and I'll be eighteen tomorrow. Surely some time outside isn't too much to ask! What have I done so wrong that you would deny me this?"

Mycroft's face was carefully blank, and Sherlock bristled in anger at the knowledge that he was being read like a book. His brother's eyes softened at the corners, which only fuelled his ire, because he did not need sympathy, and certainly not from _him_.

"Sherlock," Mycroft said quietly. "I'm aware the situation is not ideal, but I have no other options. If you have a better idea, do tell me. I'm only trying to protect you from those who would hurt you, and from yourself."

"I do not need your _protection_," Sherlock spat, fury coursing through his veins.

Mycroft delicately picked up his spoon. "You do not know the very real dangers that lie outside these walls."

"And whose fault is that?"

His brother's glance was sharp. "I will gladly take on your anger and resentment if it means you remain safe and unharmed. The answer is still no. Do not ask again, Sherlock."

Sherlock dug his fingers into his knees and fought to control himself, trembling with adrenaline and vexation and the _unfairness_ of it all. He couldn't go outside, he couldn't have his window, and he was _bored_ and Mycroft didn't care because it wasn't as though _he_ was the one trapped inside all day, every day—

He shot to his feet, ignoring the burning sensation of frustrated tears behind his eyes, and strode to the stairs, taking them two at a time until he vanished into his room. Straight to the desk that served as his makeshift chemistry lab, seizing beakers and vials and test tubes in both hands and throwing them at the walls. Distantly, he thought he heard the shattering of glass, over and over and over again until there was nothing left to break, but the static-like rushing in his ears drowned out everything else.

Still no noise from downstairs—no comments, no footsteps, no clink of metal against porcelain.

Sherlock curled up on his bed with his eyes tightly shut, hair draped around him just like that bird's nest he'd seen once, and wondered why he was longing for something he'd never had.


	3. Chapter 2: Remembrance

Author's Note: Omg, I am so busy, I don't even. Yet somehow I find myself writing more now than I did over Spring Break. Coincidence? I think not. But I digress. Anyway, you can probably figure out who these people are…this scene is short and actually kinda really necessary. Let me know what you think, and there will be more next week! Reviews are good for my soul and make an author a happy girl! And happiness makes me write. :D

Warnings: This is not going to follow Tangled's storyline to the letter, although it will be close. Be prepared. Disclaimers are in the profile. Warnings will be discontinued after this scene; refer to the prologue and/or first scene for future reference.

~2~

The gentle strains of a violin drifted quietly through the still night air, the notes soft and mournful in the dark as a lone woman stood in the centre of an empty room and coaxed music from the strings. Tall, slender, and dark-haired, she held herself in the manner of one with years of experience and unshakeable confidence in her skills. There was no light in the room, save the faint moonlight that pushed through every revealing crack in the curtains it could find, but even that was unnecessary—with her eyes closed she could see the music in her mind, shifting and morphing in a way that told her arm and wrist and fingers exactly what to do.

"Violette?"

Her playing never paused for an instant as the Queen's eyes opened and she turned, gaze alighting on the man in the doorway. She finished the last few bars of her piece, letting the last note hang suspended in the air before fading away to silence. A small sad smile passed her lips as she lowered her violin.

"William?"

The King's expression was strained and weary, the lines of his face appearing more pronounced particularly around this time of year. The thick black hair was interspersed with grey, showing more predominantly in his beard and moustache than anywhere else. His green eyes watched her for a long wordless moment, taking in his wife's demeanour, her instrument, and the unlived state of the room.

_His_ room.

"What are you doing?" her husband asked almost reluctantly, as though unwilling to disrupt the newly established quiet.

"It's his birthday tomorrow," she replied simply, holding his gaze, because that explained everything. Cradling her beloved violin, she carried it to the ornamental stand across the room and set it lovingly into place, letting her fingertips caress the polished wood. Her only son will age another year, and once again, she won't be present to witness it.

"Nearly eighteen years now," William acknowledged, his entire visage flinching at the reminder of a loss almost two decades old, and for a second, the only thing Violette saw in his face was pain.

She was drawn to him like iron to a magnet, his loss and his hurt as keenly felt as her own, but the only thing to be done was to cross the room and pull him to her, and try to hold them both together. She felt his breath stutter painfully in and out of his chest as she rested her head on his shoulder, her hands stroking soothing paths along his spine while a large hand pressed against the curls cascading down her back.

"Do you remember," she began, but the rest of the words got stuck on their way out, so she cleared her throat and tried again. "Do you remember the lullaby I used to play for him? Before he…he…"

William said nothing, but pulled her closer in response. Violette glanced over her shoulder at where her son's crib used to sit, replaced by an empty, brand-new bed, and remembered.

_She draws the bow over the strings again, because he likes this song, the same lullaby her father played for her when she was a little girl. A tiny, pudgy hand reaches up at her, little fingers grasping for the source of a sound that's far too distant for him to reach. She smiles; her face lights up at her son's insistent wriggling, and she thinks she has never felt as much love for another human being as she does for this one—one who can't even talk, and drools, and chews on his own fingers._

_Those are her pale blue eyes in his face, and Heaven knows where all that red hair came from, but that might—it's a bit soon to tell—be William's nose. He is the most beautiful thing she has ever seen._

_He mouths wetly at her, proving his salivary glands are functioning just fine, and then the gurgling starts. William, on the other side of the crib, lowers a finger for him to grab. Immediately, he latches on but his fingers are not coordinated enough or big enough to do anything other than flail at it._

_Her heart swells with pride and love, and if he was capable of speech, if he could ask for anything, anything at all, she would give it to him without a second thought. Is this what every new mother feels?_

_As she reaches the final notes of the lullaby, his head tilts in her direction, yet she knows she is out of his limited range of sight. His eyes are still developing, fragile and sensitive, so she transfers her bow to her other hand, angling it across the strings, and moves in closer._

"_Hello, Sherlock," she says, meeting William's eyes over their son's head, and she sees that he feels the exact same way she does._

_Sherlock can see her violin now and reaches out again, showing off more of his new gurgling skills._

_She laughs. "Not now, Sherlock," she tells him, delighted, "it's too big for you now. You can learn when _you're_ a little bigger, if you're still interested, alright? I promise. Mummy will teach you."_

_His eyes remain steadfastly focused on the shiny metal of the violin's fine tuners, and she knows he doesn't recognize her words, only the sound of her voice, but that's fine. She'll be here for his first words, and his first steps, and if he wants, his first music lesson._

Only he wasn't.

She was, and he wasn't, and her heart ached with the knowledge that she had missed all those important aspects of her son's life, all those little once-in-a-lifetime moments she would never get back. But she wouldn't cry now, because she'd spent the first two months of his disappearance crying at the slightest provocation: the squall of another infant, red hair, any name starting with the letter 's'. She'd had eighteen years to overcome the instinct to break down, and she certainly wasn't going to succumb to it now.

William's arms tightened around her, and she had never been more thankful her husband had always been able to read her so well.

"There's always…" his sentence faded into silence and Violette knew that tone, that melancholy darkness in his voice that said he was thinking the worst.

She pulled back so she could see his face, raising an eyebrow at him so he would continue.

The King didn't look at her, gazing off somewhere over his wife's left shoulder. Probably at the bed their son had never slept in. "There's always a chance he's not—"

She pressed a finger to his lips and halted the rest of his words, warned him with her eyes not to finish that thought. Violette lifted her chin, and in that moment, she couldn't be mistaken for anything other than a queen.

"William," she said, her voice soft but firm. "No one steals an infant to murder it."

William blanched.

Her heart quailed at the heartrending expression on his face, but he needed to hear this, if only for the simple reason that she couldn't afford to have him lose hope. All they had now was each other.

"That's an unnecessary amount of work for a simple task," she continued as she fought to keep the quaver out of her voice, taking a moment to summon a little extra strength and grasp both his hands in hers. "He is out there, somewhere. And you'd do very well to remember that."

Her husband turned to look at the wide French doors on the far side of the room, the furniture that had never been used, all the toys and books and possessions that accumulated every birthday, for a boy who wasn't there.

"I think I will retire for the night," Violette murmured, following his gaze, and feeling nothing but a heavy, gaping hole in her heart. A part of her was out there, living, breathing somewhere, and without it she wouldn't be complete. _Couldn't_ be complete.

"Allow me to escort you," the King said gently, offering her his arm.

His eyes caught hers and the two shared a few grief-filled seconds for a wound that would never fully heal. Then they briefly composed themselves the way royalty were expected to be, and exited their son's chambers.

The door smoothly closed and locked behind them.


	4. Chapter 3: Boredom and Paint

Author's Note: Omg, it's already Tuesday again. At this rate we're going to catch up, and I won't have anything new. Uh oh. And my internet's acting wonky, so I'm just going to get this up and head off to sleep. Stupid internet. But we have this bit, then we meet John, then back to Sherlock, then John again, and after that Sherlock and John meet! :D Soon, soon! Next part should be longer, too.

-3-

Oh, _god_, he was so _bored_.

Mycroft had left ages ago, off to do whatever it was he did during the day, something business-y and bossy, no doubt, and once again he was stuck here with nothing to do. Everything was so tedious, so mind-numbingly dreary.

He was starting to regret destroying all his lab equipment last night.

That display of childishness had sent his experiment back to square one—he'd been working on creating something acidic enough to unseal his window, yet wouldn't completely destroy his shutters. But Mycroft was very careful with the materials he provided, and Sherlock had only a few places to hide the progress he was making, and now the whole thing was for naught.

Sherlock glowered at his reflection in the mirror of his vanity table-turned-desk. His face glared back at him, furious for ruining the only true entertainment he had in this horrendous place, and what was he going to do _now_?

There were no books he could get lost in, as Mycroft had been overly involved in his work lately and lacked the time to bring back anything new. Sherlock lived for books, everything he knew he'd learned from books; how was he supposed to keep his brain occupied otherwise?

Mycroft had taken over his schooling when Nana left, drilling him in his letters and numbers, teaching him to read and solve puzzles and write essays and do arithmetic. He'd gone without dinner some nights for misspelled words and improper grammar, lost his lab privileges for back talk and numerically wrong answers, but Sherlock was practically a sponge for knowledge. He learned fast, remembered everything he'd been taught, and it all revolved around the books Mycroft read to him and years later, left him to study.

He hadn't had a lesson in years.

Perhaps he'd reached the end of what Mycroft could teach him, but he suspected that wasn't the case. The frequency of his lessons radically decreased when he first began asking what it was like outside the house. Not only that, but they'd shifted from geography and history to safer topics like trigonometry and culinary arts, the latter of which Sherlock despised. When he was fifteen, the nearest town had hired Mycroft for some exceedingly important position and the lessons had halted indefinitely, substituted instead for the occasional book or other scholarly text his brother deigned to give him.

What could the outside world possibly hold that would cause Mycroft to purposely keep him in ignorance?

The awareness of his own lack of knowledge both chafed and further fuelled his curiosity. There was more out there, of course there was. There had to be. Mountains and rivers and towns to explore, people and devastation and prosperous places he was determined to see if he could find a way out from under Mycroft's ever-vigilant thumb.

Sherlock scowled at his sealed window. It was merely a delay, nothing more.

His biggest question was when (not 'if', there would be no 'if's, only 'when') he did leave, where would he go?

Vaguely, he recognized there was a town nearby—the same place Mycroft worked and bought their supplies from, according to the contradictory smell of grit and baked goods clinging to his clothes—but he wasn't entirely sure where it was. His brother was careful not to leave any papers lying around and although he was familiar with the concept of cartography, he had never laid eyes on an atlas or a map. Not once.

Fine then. He didn't need a destination. He'd just…leave. So there.

Raising his chin haughtily, Sherlock stalked out of his room and down the staircase. He trailed a finger through the faint layer of dust building on the railing with spiteful satisfaction—just because he was bored and trapped here all day didn't mean he was going to resort to housework. Cleaning was dull, cooking took too long, and other than his experimenting there was only one other hobby he bothered to indulge in.

There was something powerful in expressing himself through paint, Sherlock had discovered.

He'd had a terrible row with Mycroft the first time his brother came home and found he'd desecrated the walls. There'd been no paint in the house at that time, so in a fit of intrigue he'd mashed up food of all sorts into paste and spread it on the walls. Admittedly, it wasn't the best idea he'd ever had, but he certainly wasn't going to _apologize_ for the mess. He'd argued about boredom, and the need for self-expression, that his options for entertainment here were limited and there were only so many times he could sit around brushing all forty meters of his hair. All nonsense, naturally, but Mycroft finally gave in when Sherlock refused to clean his organic artwork from the walls unless his brother bought him proper paint.

It was the first and only battle Sherlock had ever won, so he made the most of it.

After retrieving his art box from the wardrobe he traipsed back up the stairs and gazed around his room in search of the day's latest stretch of 'canvas', only to discover he was running out of space. The thought was distressing, and he'd have to come up with a solution soon.

Downstairs had been the place where he'd first started working. In a fit of bitterness, he'd wanted to begin with Mycroft's small room off the kitchen after his window had first been permanently closed, but his brother's door was always locked and he couldn't get in. Gradually, he'd moved up the walls, along the staircase, and into his own room as he got closer and closer to the roof. Lately he'd taken to suspending himself from the eaves with his hair looped into variations of makeshift harnesses, because honestly his hair had no other practical everyday use, and it never failed to make Mycroft fret. But maybe he should start with the floor, next?

Sherlock eyed his walls critically, examining the colours applied over the wood and masonry. His initial brushwork consisted of formulas and diagrams he needed for experiments. Then Mycroft had brought home art books for his perusal and he'd branched out into more creative areas, learning as he went and losing himself in hours of lines, contours, and colours. Animals, astronomy, and the basic human form appeared sporadically on the stone, slowly morphing from realism to the impossible to the abstract.

He painted whatever happened to catch his fancy at that moment: self-portraits that lost clarity near the bottom, dark hues bleeding together into a background for another picture; vertical curvy symmetrical lines separated by dark columns with a perpendicular line of four bright dots; green circles and other geometric shapes overlapping each other. Overall, the result was a collage of styles and shades of pigment that transformed his room into a questionably successful foray into home décor.

Hmmm, well…he could always work on the ceiling. At the very least, it would make Mycroft blink and his mouth thin in disapproval when he finally returned home.

Nodding decisively to himself, he craned his head back to scrutinize the wooden beams above him. Then he dragged the end of his trailing hair to him, the weight of it dense and warm in his hands, and lobbed it up into the rafters.


	5. Chapter 4: Eight in the Morning

Author's Note: OMG, I FORGOT TUESDAY! HOW DID THIS HAPPEN? I'm so sorry you guys! I've been so busy and stressed lately I hardly know if my head's on straight, let alone what day of the week it is. I may need to start putting updates on my calendar. But you finally get to see a bit of John, and I hope you all like this.

~4~

"You know, I don't think we've had a day this fine in a long while."

"Shut up, Watson," a woman said impatiently behind him.

"Call me John," he replied amicably, hands on his hips as he stared contentedly over the City. "Surely we're on a first name basis by now, Sally, don't you think?"

"It's Donovan, to you," she snapped.

"Cut the chatter, if you wouldn't mind," another male voice demanded from somewhere near Sally.

John ignored him. "I could use a place with a view like this," he mused, stroking his chin. "You wouldn't happen to know any flats 'round here with one, would you Anderson?"

"None that you can afford," the dark-haired man said bitingly.

"I'll be able to afford anything when I'm done—er, _we're_ done here," John shot back confidently. He inhaled deeply and cocked his head to the side. "I should just go for a castle of my own, shouldn't I?"

"Watson," Sally said, and if someone's voice could be both frigid and acidic at the same time, John thought, it would sound _exactly_ like this. "You can buy whatever the bloody hell you want when we've finished. Now move your arse."

John wiggled his hips solely for her benefit. "You're right. I shouldn't leave two helpless souls such as yourselves without the assistance of my infamous self. So move aside and—"

He turned to face his partners and paused. Sally had a length of rope she was stretching casually between her hands, watching him with cold eyes. Anderson had both arms crossed over his chest and his stare wasn't much friendlier.

"Sorry, but uh…that wouldn't be a noose, would it?" he had to ask.

Sally and Anderson just smiled identical smiles while a shiver travelled down his spine.

John sighed, a little put out, and made a mental note not to work with these two again. A crown almost wasn't enough to compensate for their stick-in-the-mud attitudes. He went to join his temporary conspirators by the skylight. "Alright, fine. Let's get this done then, shall we?"

He tried to stay still as she tied the rope around him, but really, she didn't have to tie the knot _that_ tight. Then again, sliding out of the loop in the middle of the job was an awkward and unappealing option.

"Ready?" Anderson asked, kneeling and prepared to pry open the glass cover.

"Bit late to back out now," John pointed out, tugging a plain cloth sack out of his inner coat pocket.

"Okay, go," urged Sally, nodding at the other man.

Anderson silently pulled the skylight up and moved around to take position behind Sally, seizing a firm hold on the rope.

John crouched next to the open hole in the roof, no more than one meter square, and planted his hands on both sides of it. He let his arms take his full weight for a moment as he swung his legs into the gap, muscles straining, before the braided cord around his waist abruptly went taut. Pulling in his elbows to make himself as small as possible, he revelled in the potent bloom of adrenaline roaring through his veins. Nothing beat dropping from the ceiling to steal the Kingdom's most valued possession right from under the noses of its own Guard.

His descent was steady and surprisingly soundless, so John couldn't help but peer around curiously as the distance between him and his target rapidly vanished. The place was wide, airy, and lavishly decorated with paintings of the Royal Family and overly plush carpets that all rich people seemed to favour. His end of the room was protected by an eight man line of the Royal Guard's brightest and most attentive—he snickered internally here—with their backs to the very object they were meant to be protecting. Shrouded in morning sunlight, the lost Prince's crown gleamed and glittered and begged not to be left alone on a pillowed pedestal for nary a second longer. John was only too happy to oblige it.

Delicately removing the expensive circlet from its cushion, he nimbly tucked it into the bag.

Three meters away, one of the guards sneezed and rubbed at his nose.

John froze, his eyes darting to the grumbling man, and once again couldn't resist the urge to speak. "Hayfever?" he asked sympathetically into the silence.

"Yeah," the man answered, sniffling. "Always bad this time of year."

"Nasty business," John agreed, crossing his arms. He propped his chin in a hand while he observed the man's back. "You know, some honey and a couple oranges should help clear that up."

"Really?" the guard questioned, sounding surprised and impressed. "Well thanks, mate. Say, would you—"

John watched, amused, when the muscles in the Guard's back stiffened at the belated realization that there shouldn't be any conversationalists behind him. He glanced up at Sally and Anderson right when the rope around his waist jerked roughly, signalling the start of his return journey.

"Hey, wait a minute—"

"Sorry sir, you'll have to make an appointment. I'm afraid not all good advice comes free," John quipped as every guard present whipped around to witness his swift ascent. "A little faster, maybe?" he suggested to Sally's furious face.

"Halt right there, thief! Hang on, you! Wait! Stop!"

The room below collapsed into panicked chaos as his comrades hauled him onto the warm tiled roof, his fingers swiftly prying apart the knotted cord wrapped around him.

Anderson was cursing in ways that would have made his mother rinse his mouth out with soap of the coarsest kind.

"You couldn't keep your bloody gob shut for thirty seconds, could you?" Sally spat heatedly, glaring at him.

"Oh come on, couldn't you see the way that bloke was _suffering_?" John protested, sliding down the tiled roof after the fuming woman. "Not helping a fellow Guard would be treason or something, wouldn't it?"

"And this isn't?" Anderson snarled over his shoulder, leading them in a sprint over the tops of various royal buildings until they reached the shorter ones closest to the road.

"You _used_ to be a Guard," Sally shot back, giving him the evil eye as they scrambled down the rough stone walls of whatever building they weren't supposed to be climbing. "He's not a 'fellow Guard' if you're not one anymore, you idiot! And he's going to have the rest of his comrades on our arses now, thanks to you!"

"Nuance," insisted John flippantly, running down the road into the City with his partners on his heels. There was nothing like a good adrenaline rush before breakfast. "What's the harm in a little game of chase? Honestly, look at what we've accomplished and it's not even eight in the morning!"

This was shaping up to be an absolutely _gorgeous_ day. Perhaps he'd get his castle after all.


	6. Chapter 5: Departure

Author's Note: So. I keep missing deadlines. Since it looks like this is in danger of becoming a habit, I'll have to push back my posting updates. From now on I'll be posting once a month. I hate to do this, but I think it's necessary. I have a lot going on right now and I can't guarantee that I won't miss any more self-set deadlines. Sorry, you guys.

-5-

Sherlock had been painting for about two hours when the bell downstairs started ringing.

He huffed in impatience, because it was just like Mycroft to interrupt any fun he'd found for himself at the most inconvenient of times. Muttering darkly under his breath, he set aside his paintbrush and lowered himself to the floor, untangling various limbs from his hair as he went. He tripped out of his room and down the stairs to the kitchen and dropped to his knees, feeling with his fingertips for the tell-tale cracks in the floor. Digging in with a hiss, he levered up the loose tile and glared down into the darkness.

"Take the stairs!"

A pointed silence was his only response.

Grumbling furiously, Sherlock tossed his hair over the hook in the ceiling and toed the rest of it into the gap in the floor with his bare feet. The blackness swallowed the reddish gold locks immediately, and Sherlock waited for the familiar tug before he started pulling.

Oh _hell_, he was heavy.

Mycroft, at twenty-five, was bigger and probably weighed twice as much as Sherlock did, and you'd think he'd get used to this whole 'hauling Mycroft into the house' business since it happened every day, but no, not really. His hair, unlike him, handled the strain easily, pooling in a shiny mass at his feet as he used his own weight to raise his brother through the floor. He scowled at it and entertained the idea of just letting go.

He was tired, sore, and trying really hard not to pant in exertion when Mycroft finally set foot on the tiles. His brother nodded at him in greeting. Sherlock glowered and sulkily shoved the loose tile back into place with his heels, delighting in the older man's reflexive flinch as it banged loudly. His eyes zoomed in on his brother's carefully wrapped right hand while he unhooked his hair.

"New letter opener?"

"Yes."

He glanced at his hair on the floor and back.

"Not necessary," Mycroft answered his unasked question.

"Hmph."

Mycroft eyed him, deciphering his entire morning from the wrinkles in his clothes and paint on his hands, noting the smouldering resentment and dissatisfaction in his face.

Sherlock stared back defiantly. "What are you doing back so early?"

His brother waited with irritating patience.

He narrowed his eyes. Not a speck of dirt on his clothes, so there'd been no rush. If he'd returned for additional documents, he wouldn't be standing here watching him and it was several hours too early for lunch. So he planned on staying, then.

"Taking the day off?" Sherlock asked, frowning.

"It is your birthday," Mycroft acknowledged, walking to the kitchen and opening the pantry to examine its contents. "I had some things to finish up, but I've cleared my schedule for the day."

"Mmm." He picked up the last meter and a half of his hair and combed through it with his fingers, scrutinizing it for dirt and other debris from Mycroft's shoes. What did it matter if his brother was here? It only served as a stinging reminder that he wasn't going to get what he wanted.

Mycroft half turned to look at him wearily like he'd spoken his thoughts out loud. "Sherlock, you know—"

"Yes, I do," Sherlock agreed sharply, pinning the other man with an icy stare. "As you're so fond of saying, 'we've discussed this'. It doesn't matter. I've changed my mind."

A lie, and Mycroft knew it. They were stubborn men. Stubborn men don't change their minds; they just come up with other ways to occupy themselves until they get what they they're after. And that's not even mentioning _sneaky_ stubborn men.

"Oh?"

"I need a new set of experimental equipment," Sherlock announced, still lazily tending to his hair.

"Do you?" Mycroft inquired simply, as though he hadn't heard the ruckus of the previous night.

"I had a bit of an…accident, last night," he continued, ignoring his brother. "My glassware needs to be replaced."

"All of it?" Mycroft asked dryly.

Sherlock glared at him.

His brother turned back to the pantry for several long moments. Edgy, Sherlock waited for a response.

"That's two days journey, where I bought your first set, Sherlock," Mycroft finally said.

"Your point?" said Sherlock caustically, releasing his hair. "Unless you leave the door wide open behind you, I won't be going anywhere."

Mycroft's fingers paused on the shelves. A heavy silence fell between them like a solid barrier that Sherlock refused to be the first to break.

"I'd prefer not to leave you here alone," his brother said eventually.

He grit his teeth. "I can take care of myself," he declared fiercely, rising to his feet. "What am I supposed to do here without my lab?"

"Practice improving your self-control, I should think," Mycroft remarked reprovingly, a warning underlying his words.

Sherlock turned away and dug his nails into his palms. The last thing he needed to do right now was throw more breakable objects. It wouldn't help his case.

"Very well."

He glanced at his brother, brow furrowing. "What?"

Mycroft pulled out a loaf of bread and looked over the fruit on the counter. "The sooner I leave, the sooner I return. I trust you won't burn the place to the ground in my absence?"

"Possibly," Sherlock allowed. He watched as the food was wrapped in a cloth and knotted.

"If you lose this second set to another 'accident'," Mycroft informed him as he pried up the loose floor tile again, "there will not be a third one."

Sherlock looked up to meet his brother's steady gaze. He inclined his head in acceptance, re-hung his hair, and surveyed the older man as he readied himself for departure. At his nod, Sherlock carefully began the process of lowering him back down.

"Happy birthday, little brother," came Mycroft's voice from the darkness.

Their eyes locked for a fraction of an instant—blue on blue with a flash of understanding—because even when they fought and drove each other mad and Sherlock periodically decided he hated him, they were still brothers. Then Sherlock uncomfortably averted his gaze, observing the hair moving under his hands, and seconds later, Mycroft's weight disappeared.


	7. Chapter 6: Where All the Fun Starts

Author's Note: OMG ANOTHER UPDATE. I know, it's been a while. RL is kicking my ass. Christ, I can't wait 'til summer. This part is all about John, and I hope you like! Let me know if there's any glaring mistakes or anything, a'ight?

~6~

John had had better days, really.

Stealing was only a good hobby if you were smart about it, and this whole 'game of chase' thing was starting to get a little tedious, to be perfectly honest. Running in a bid for his freedom was poetic and fine and dandy, but things seemed to have changed in the Guards since he'd left its ranks because these wankers were _fast_.

John stumbled to a halt by a sturdy-looking tree, Sally and Anderson following, when his eyes caught sight of slip of paper pinned to the bark. With a suspicious feeling curling in his ribcage, he straightened it out and looked at it.

His shriek startled birds from the treetops and made Sally kick him in the shin.

"The hell is wrong with you?" Anderson demanded, already in a sour mood from running more in the last ten minutes than he had in the last month.

Deeply distressed, John flipped the paper around and held it up next to his face. "They still can't get my ears right!"

Anderson rolled his eyes.

"Really?" Sally asked in disbelief even as her eyes roved over the inked sketch, where John's ears were far too small for his head. "That's what's got your knickers in a twist? Not that your face's on a wanted poster?"

"It's easy for _you_ to scoff at," John pointed out crossly, re-examining the distorted un-likeness of himself. "It's not _your_ face they've mangled and put up all over the forest, is it? And I've been number one on the Royal Most Wanted list for the last year and a half; of _course_ my face is on a wanted poster."

"How do you make that sound like something to be proud of?" Sally massaged her temples with her fingertips.

"Well who else do you know who can say that?" asked John indignantly, stuffing the poster into his inner coat pocket.

"That is a bit impressive," Anderson grudgingly agreed.

John tipped his head in acknowledgment of his greatness.

Sally muttered about stupid bloody bastards under her breath.

The staccato pounding of hoof beats filled the air, steadily growing louder as they automatically turned to each other.

"The game is on," John informed them with deliberate solemnity.

"'Game'," Sally snorted derisively, sounding like she wanted to throttle him.

Then they were running again, taking the easy ground because the foliage wasn't sufficiently dense to provide enough of an obstacle to make the hard way worth the effort.

"Watson!" Sally called behind him, but he ignored her; couldn't she see they were busy at the moment? He had no intention of spending time in Her Majesty's company and this was not the occasion for sarcastic commentary.

And that was how they ended up facing a dead end wall of dirt that had no natural right to be _anywhere_, let alone randomly set in the middle of a forest like a U-shaped patch of land had decided to raise itself four meters in the middle of the night on a whim.

Huh. So that's why the path forked back there. Figured. It was a shame backtracking wasn't an option.

"Right, I forgot about that. Give me a leg up?" suggested John, looking back at the other two.

He got nothing but flat stares in response.

"You're not serious," he demanded, thoroughly insulted.

"Well, give us the crown first, then," countered Anderson, holding out a hand challengingly.

"I—wh—after all the hard work I _suffered through_ to get it, you want me to just _hand it over_?" John protested, horrified at the very thought. "You don't trust me?"

"_Most Wanted list_," Sally coughed into her hand.

"You don't trust _us_?" Anderson returned, narrowing his eyes.

"Not really, no," John said as he looked from one to the other.

"No deal then," Anderson told him, crossing his arms. "We'll be seeing each other in prison, I expect."

Clenching his jaw, John thought it over quickly. He had more at stake here than Sally or Anderson—while stealing from the Royal Family was no laughing matter, neither of them were well-known and could easily claim he'd manipulated them into it. On the other hand, _he_ had a list of offences longer than he was tall, and it didn't take a genius to work out how quickly he'd be executed if the Guards got their leather gauntlets on him. Nothing for it, then.

"Fine," he ground out reluctantly, glaring at the other man. Anderson held out his hand again and John tossed the bag to Sally, just to be a prat. And because she was lighter than Anderson.

The dark-haired man gave him a dirty look but John ignored him, listening to the thundering of the Royal Guard's approaching horses as Sally climbed up on Anderson's shoulders. The second she was ready he scrambled up their backs like a ladder, though he tried to be more careful with Sally because she _was_ a woman after all, and it was important to be considerate to women.

Except when they had what he wanted, of course.

Under his hands, the ground was unstable and crumbly as he hauled himself up the rest of the way, dragging himself along on his stomach and grasping at grass and roots and whatever else he could put his hands on until he could get his legs up under him.

"Pull her up already, would you?" Anderson grumbled from below.

John rolled his eyes. Twisting sharply, he kicked the heel of his boot into the edge of loose earth he'd just climbed over, spraying Sally's face with dirt and dead vegetation. She cursed as her hands reflexively flew up to swipe at her eyes, the movement throwing her off balance and forcing Anderson to move with her. Lunging forward, John smoothly snatched the cloth bag from her lax fingers and grinned charmingly.

"Sorry, my hands are full," he responded mock regretfully, dangling the protected crown over their heads. "Been nice working with you two, though not really. With any luck, I won't be seeing you!"

He was up and moving, congratulating himself on a job well done, before Sally was even finished trying to restore her sight.

"WATSON!" Anderson roared, fury in his voice, but honestly—with a man of his reputation, they hadn't really _not_ expected to be double-crossed, had they? In this line of work, betrayal was as standard as giving a false name.

"Grab those two!" A new male voice commanded over the din of neighing horses and stomping hooves, loud and full of authority. "Don't let them run off! The rest of you lot with me; Watson can't have gone far!"

A loud whinnying cry followed his words, spurring John to pick up his pace and start heading deeper into the forest. He'd wasted too much time with those two idiots back there and now, maybe, it was going to cost him. That voice was new but clearly in charge, probably the Commander of the Guard—they must have changed up the ranks in the last few months or so because he didn't sound familiar. The old Commander had been so aged he'd hardly remembered how to sit in his saddle, let alone ride and give orders and fire a weapon at the same time. Damn.

He resorted to cutting through the trees, ducking suspicious-looking vines, and leaping over fallen branches just to make things that little bit harder for his pursuers. Of course, this only prompted them to use those crossbows they liked to carry around, and didn't that bring back memories, but they were lousy shots really so as long as he kept moving he didn't have a thing to worry about. For the most part his tactic worked, forcing the men behind him to fall back until the one man left tracking him was the one man he _didn't want_ tracking him.

"Watson!"

And blast it all, he was going to have to do something about this, because as amazing as he was, he still couldn't outrun a bloody horse.

Adrenaline burned under his skin, the ground shaking under his feet as he ran, and judging by the feel of it, he had less than ten seconds to make some sort of decision.

The vines dangling at the edge of the path seemed to be waiting for him in answer. He didn't hesitate as he grabbed one and launched himself off the path, his own momentum swinging him around in a wide arc back towards the approaching grey and black horse.

And really, he must have timed that perfectly because what he could see of the shocked expression on the Commander's face was just _priceless_ before John knocked the older man off his ride.

Releasing his improvised rope and barely managing to stay upright, John grappled with the saddle and the horse's reins, a triumphant laugh spilling from his lips. He had the crown, he had a horse, he'd lost the Commander's men a ways back with no way to catch up, and if he could just make it over the bridge up ahead—

His horse skidded to a bone-jarring halt, throwing John heavily into its neck and giving him a face full of dark mane.

"What?" John sputtered, pushing himself upright with indignant confusion and digging in with his heels. "Oh come on, not _now_!"

The beast had the nerve to snort at him and turn its head, refusing to move while it glared at him with one dark eye.

"Don't give me that look; you're a _horse_," John protested, vaguely concerned with how he was conversing with an animal, but the way it was _looking_ at him...

Even more disconcerting, the horse's gaze narrowed before darting away to stare at something lower and off to the side. Bewildered, John followed its gaze and realized it was staring at the bag in his hand.

"Oh no," declared John, glowering menacingly at the dapple grey head in front of him. "I've been through far too much for this today."

With an abrupt twist, the horse snapped at the bag with its teeth.

"_No_," he repeated firmly, lifting the bag higher and out of the way. "This is not for you."

Well. His new equine not-friend didn't seem to like hearing that very much.

Moving startlingly fast, the horse lunged forward like iron drawn to a magnet and John's reflexes almost weren't quick enough to pull the cloth sack out of range. But the horse didn't stop with just once—it kept on with a dogged-minded persistence, chasing the bag in circles and ignoring John's curses until he started to feel dizzy.

"_Jesus_," John snarled, trying to gather some sort of control of the reins with one hand and keeping the other as far away as possible. "You're off your head, you know that? Would you just—"

Teeth snagged the cloth and panic surged violently in his chest for a oddly long, almost slow-motion moment as the fabric stretched—_no goddamit it's mine bloody horse don't_—and his first instinct was to flatten his palm against its muzzle and _push_. He could have lost his fingers, he realized later, if it'd decided to take a nip at him instead, but all he really wanted was for it to _let go_.

"No—stop it, you—if you don't let it—"

With a vicious tug the cloth slipped free from under his hand, but the horse obviously hadn't expected him to lost his grip since the bag slingshot away from them like it had rocket boosters attached to it. They both watched in horrified, breathless silence as it clattered and rolled onto the old wooden footbridge John had been aiming for earlier, miraculously avoiding any gaps between the uneven slats.

There was a pause as they both took an instant to appreciate the fact that the crown was relatively unharmed. Which quickly turned into relentless plotting on how to get there first without being mauled.

John dove out of the saddle and made a break for it because this was a race now, and he was already at a serious disadvantage simply by virtue of being human. Immediately, four hooves thundered after him but no, that was _his_ crown now, he stole it fair and square—

A sharp pull at the heel of his boot was the only warning he received before it sent him face first into the dirt. A high-pitched whinnying followed as the horse trotted by him, swishing its dark-haired tail just above his head.

That—the horse was _laughing at him_.

No. Oh no.

No one laughed at John Watson, least of all a saddle-carrying animal that couldn't even talk. Two could play at that game, yessir.

Scowling, John shoved himself to his feet and sprinted after his four-legged competitor, aiming a flying tackle at the horse's two front legs that brought them both collapsing to the ground. He scrambled determinedly to his hands and knees and ran, avoiding the bite the evil mammal attempted to inflict on the back of his leg and crossed onto the bridge, ignoring the empty space around him and the scattered patches of forest he could see far, far below his feet.

He was more than halfway there when the already unstable contraption supporting his weight started shuddering and shaking hard enough to throw him off-balance. His hands grasped uselessly at the flimsy rope railings as he twisted around to see what the hell—

That damn horse was stomping with excessive strength in every step it took onto the bridge, watching him with piercingly calculating eyes, undoubtedly _trying_ to throw him over the side. _Unbelievable_.

John stumbled unsteadily forward, now fuelled by stubbornness and a familiar bull-headed desire to be contradictory, and grabbed his new most prized possession just as the bag began sliding for the edge of its wooden plank. Spinning around, he brandished it in front of him victoriously, smug with the knowledge that whatever happened next, he had _won_.

"Ha!" he declared imperiously, taking in the horse currently sending him eye daggers, his gaze darting briefly over the nameplate strapped to its chest reading D-I-M-M-O-C-K. "How do you like that, you flea-bitten, bloody awful—"

An ominous creaking sound ripped through the air like a gunshot, making them both freeze in place. Their wide eyes met for less than a second before they looked over at the end of the bridge. The aged rope securing it to the ground continued fraying rapidly before their eyes.

"Oh _bugger_—"

Far too much physical exertion involved in today's heist, John thought furiously, once again running, this time for the other end of the bridge. Their combined weight was far too heavy for this simple little creation of rope and wood; the horse's fault really, he would have made it across just fine on his own. There was no way he was going to make it, none at all, there was too far to go and not enough—

A definitive _snap_ echoed in his ears as the rope gave up on anchoring itself to solid soil. Fear gripped his chest in a cold fist because he still had a good seven or so metres to go, and he could sense the bridge swiftly dropping away behind him. The horse let out a terrified cry as gravity caught up to it, and seconds later, there was nothing at all under John Watson's feet.

He felt weightless for a moment, hanging suspended in the air as though time had stopped just for him, but that wasn't right because if he wasn't moving the rest of the world certainly was. Colours blurred around him in a confusing mass as he dropped out of the sky in a terrifying free-fall, and nope, that was definitely him moving; the air flying past in a deafening rush that drowned out the pounding of his heart and let him know his stomach had been left back where the bridge used to be.

His body smashed through branches and leaves at an alarming velocity, and he lacked even the time to attempt curling into a ball when he slammed into the ground with enough force to cause an instant ache all over.

Groaning, John closed his eyes and ran a quick self-inventory. He could feel the bag and its contents still in his hand, and there didn't seem to be any major damage other than minor pain— the grass grew wild and tangled here, making a natural cushion that protected him from serious injury. He opened his eyes and sat up, noticing he'd landed about ten centimetres from a boulder nearly as tall as he was that could have broken his spine.

His luck was just _amazing_ today, wasn't it? God, he was brilliant.

The noisy rustle of underbrush nearby made him press closer to the rock in front of him as he tried to peer around it without giving away his hiding place.

The Commander of the Guards' grey and black horse leapt out into his clearing, head shifting minutely as it suspiciously examined the surrounding vegetation.

John cursed fluently in his head and held his breath. The last thing he wanted was another confrontation with it. What would it do next, throw him in a river?

Abruptly, the horse lowered its nose to the ground and started snuffling away as though it thought it was a pig searching for truffles, walking quickly and vanishing from sight.

He heaved a silent sigh of relief, creeping out from behind his cover. The trees were a little more dense here, full of shadows and a spartan amount of sunlight, but it was just enough for a silvery glinting from the forest floor to catch his eye. A few lone arrows littered the grass, most likely lost when the horse fell and upended their holder. Couldn't hurt to take them with him; at the very least it'd reduce the ammunition the Guards could fire at him.

The second he pocketed the three arrows there again came the loud crunch of shrubbery, closer this time, prompting John to look frantically around for a better place to hide. Spying a wall of green behind him, he hurried to investigate the ivy hanging over the wall of rock not far from the boulder he'd used before. And it wasn't just growing along the wall, there was an _opening_ back there, even better. Excellent.

He slipped through just as the horse reappeared with its head held high, holding the intimidating pose as long as possible for maximum effect, before bounding off again like an animal possessed.

Stupid, _crazy_ horse.

Rolling his eyes, he turned away from the ivy curtain since he had to keep moving; he couldn't stick around here with wild horses on the loose and more Guards were sure to turn up sooner or later. He was expecting more forest or maybe even a cave of some sort, but not...not an even larger clearing with a picturesque stream and the highest tower he'd ever seen in his life framed against the mountains.

Who on _earth_ would live in a tower out here in the middle of nowhere?

Well, it'd be a good place for him to hide out for a while until all the ruckus died down, at least. Nevermind that he'd kicked it all up in the first place.

He jogged towards it, a little uneasy as the closer he got the taller it seemed to grow. It didn't seem like much though—just solid stone with an abundance of the same flowering ivy growing all over it. Circling the bottom, he searched for a door or some way to access the place, but there didn't seem to be anything. There was nothing but ivy.

Frowning, John retreated a ways and craned his neck back to take in the building again. If there wasn't a door down here, then where did—wait. Was that a window, up there? Really? Was he going to have to climb all the way up to that window? He could feel an eyebrow climbing for his hairline as he stared up in disbelief. People were mad these days, they really were. Mad as hatters.

John resolutely pushed up his sleeves and tied the bag with the crown to his belt, then pulled out the arrows he'd just collected. They appeared sturdy enough, strong and well-made. He reassessed the tower walls, eyeing the narrow gaps between the stones with a critical eye.

Yup, looked do-able. Better get started, then.

Seven minutes later, John doubted whether this had been a good idea. The muscles in his arms and stomach felt like they were on fire, as he had to rely almost entirely on his upper body strength to make any progress, but there, just above him, were the striking support beams of dark wood where the liveable part of the tower flared out from stone column. And he was going to reach them if it killed him.

His fingertips scrabbled against the old, weathered wood, insistently searching for purchase. Once he reached wood the rest was simple: the very design of the place had grips everywhere and wood gave far more easily under the arrowheads than cracks between stone did.

It didn't take long after that for him to haul himself onto the large, ornate wooden window ledge, thankfully wide enough to sit on for a few moments as John let himself rest in relief. He was getting quite the workout today, it seemed. That whole Most Wanted list business could be an awful pain, at times.

A quick glance over the clearing showed it was just as empty as when he'd started, so he turned his attention to the heavy-looking shutters in front of him. Most were hooked from the inside to keep them closed, which gave easily enough under the right amount of pressure, but that required _effort_.

With a sigh, he put a cautious hand on the centre seam and shoved.

No give at all, was there? That was a bit odd.

Frowning at his latest predicament, John maneuvered himself carefully into position so he could pull up his legs and press the sole of one boot against the painted wood. He took a deep breath, anchored himself to either side of the window with his arrows, and hoped he wasn't about to knock himself off the ledge.

His foot hit the wood with a bang that ricocheted through his calf, making him grumble obscenities under his breath. Had someone _sealed_ the bloody window shut? Because that's what it felt like.

Good Lord. How paranoid _were_ people nowadays?

Well, chances were the shutters had only been sealed from the inside, especially at this height, so if he applied enough brute force it should give. Theoretically. Probably. Hopefully.

Nothing was ever easy, was it?

Success greeted him on the fifth try, the heavy, decorated panels flying inward with a decisive crack that inspired a flood of elation he hadn't felt for a long while. He jumped down from his perch and unknotted the cloth sack at his waist, relaxing as the cool inside air brushed over his skin as he lifted the beautiful, extravagant crown in front of his face without waiting for his eyes to adjust to the dim lighting.

"You, my dear," he told it sternly, "have caused me more than your fair share of grief today—"

Then there was a sudden blinding pain at the back of his skull, and the world went black.


	8. Chapter 7: Emancipation

Author's Note: YES, IT TOOK ME AGES TO UPDATE, I KNOW! Thank you to Everyone who poked at me and demanded to know what was taking so long-it keeps me on my toes. Basically, real life was kicking my arse and I was writing this in 200 word chunks-and I mean look at the length of this chapter, it took forever to write it that way. It's late and I'm lazy, so I haven't given this the thorough editing I usually try to do, so let me know if anything's off! Thanks again Everyone for waiting so patiently. I'd say the next chapter will be up soon, but I would only leave you heartbroken, because it won't. But I will be writing, so keep hope.

~7~

There was a person in his room.

He'd been working on restarting his experiment—Mycroft would be furious when he discovered Sherlock had commandeered most of the dinnerware as substitute lab supplies, but it was a sacrifice for science he was willing to make—when a bang on the shutters of his window had startled him into dropping the cup he was holding, shattering on the unforgiving stone floor and nearly followed by the frying pan in his other hand.

Frozen with disbelief and something else, something that clawed sharply in his chest and made his heart pound, he'd stared at the window as his mind raced dizzyingly with possibilities that made no sense and only served to further confuse him. He was a good ways off the ground, and not even the birds were dim enough to fly into the house, so what could it be? Eighteen years and he'd never had this happen, even when the window hadn't been sealed.

For an uncertain moment, he'd almost wished Mycroft was still there.

At that point the noise had suddenly started up again, intensifying the tight clawing sensation that made it difficult to breathe. He'd retreated into the shadows of his room, made laughably easy due to the fact that his window was the only source of natural light unless he took the time to open the tiny skylights in the roof, which he never did. When Mycroft permanently shut it, he'd had to make do with lanterns and candles.

Then the shutters had snapped open, someone climbed through, Sherlock discovered an alternate use for frying pans, and now he was staring at the collapsed body on his floor, completely nonplussed in a way he hadn't been since Mycroft had tried to convince him that sewing was an essential life skill back when he was five.

Gaze irresistibly drawn to the sunlight blazing in from outside, his eyes automatically squinted against the brightness as he moved around the...someone...on his floor. It'd been ages since he'd been exposed to open air, and the light playing across his walls now seemed almost surreal. Although there were two windows downstairs, there was no way to open them; they were just panes of glass built into the wall.

But this...this was magnificent. It was like really seeing, really breathing, for the first time. And now that the window was open—

He glanced down abruptly at the unmoving form at his feet.

Mycroft had warned him that there were all sorts of people in the world, most of them selfish and either only looking out for themselves or searching for what didn't belong to them in the first place. People looking out for themselves generally didn't climb into other people's houses, so this person wanted—or, Sherlock amended as he eyed the small bag next to the body, already had—something that didn't belong to it.

What drove those sorts of people? Was it just greed? He was quite familiar with greed himself; Mycroft never gave him what he wanted and the few concessions his brother made were never enough, but was that it? Why was this person here? People had been after his hair since he was born, Nana had told them both that constantly, so was that why this stranger was here?

He cast a lingering look at the window before striding back to his makeshift lab table and snatching up a new pair of gloves, pulling them on with a practiced motion as he returned to crouch next to the unknown person. The frying pan stayed at his side as added security.

It was a man, obviously, the style of dress and width of his shoulders made that clear. Sherlock's eyes skimmed over him from toe to head: worn brown boots, dark grey trousers, a belt worn around the waist that matched the boots, pale grey shirt with the sleeves rolled up to just below the elbow, and a black…well, it looked like a cross between a vest and a jacket—tailored to his measurements, thick fabric, low collared, and short-sleeved. They were all of good quality, if a little dirty with a few tiny tears here and there. Though if he was right about this man, they had probably either been stolen or the money to buy them had been stolen. Judging by the fit, probably the latter.

Faintly intrigued now, he brushed a hand over the smooth yellow-brown hair on the man's head, so different from his. Straight, darker underneath, lighter and brighter as it neared the top. There was a word for yellow hair, he was sure. He used to know but it hadn't been important, he didn't know anyone with yellow hair after all, so he'd deleted it. But he supposed it didn't matter because this man's hair wasn't the same—a sort of light-but-dark, and for all his experience with colour he didn't have a name for it. Mycroft and Nana had dark hair, and his hair fell under the category of ginger, but...his brother never talked about work, or other people at all really, so he hadn't even considered...were there other hues out there? Like light-but-dark?

And it was short, too. Longer than Mycroft's, curling slightly over his forehead, around his ears, and the back of his neck, but it was nowhere near as long as his. It had obviously been cut. Did all people cut their hair? Did they just not know how to use it? Nana used to tell him his hair was special, but it was statistically unlikely that he was the _only _one with such unique hair, wasn't it?

He leaned closer, staring avidly at the man's face. His eyebrows and eyelashes were a similar colour, maybe a little darker, and even their skin was different. Sherlock carefully lifted the man's left hand from the floor and examined it, feeling foreign body heat even through his gloves. The skin was a little browner than his, the colour fading abruptly as it disappeared under the sleeve of his shirt. Pushing back the sleeve revealed more skin and a fine dusting of light hairs up the arm, marred only by the occasional faint freckle.

He moved back to the hand in his grasp, gently bending each finger and scrutinizing each nail before flipping it over to stare at the palm. It was dusty with dirt and scratched in places, but there was no blood anywhere. The bones were solid under his inquisitive fingers, the overlaying flesh firm although there were no calluses. He traced a fingertip over each line engraved in the skin with a frown, mentally comparing it to his own hand.

With critical eyes, Sherlock pressed his right hand to the limp one he was holding, aligning the heels of their palms and observing them closely. His fingers were longer and a little narrower, but it hardly mattered with their hands lined up like this because the other man's hand was still larger. The palms were broader and heavier than his own, making his hand look smaller in a way that irritated him for no logical reason. He dropped the hand and instead turned the man's head so he could see his face better.

The pale eyelashes were distracting—not that they were unusually long or curled or anything like that—but simply because he'd never before seen them as any colour other than black. He set his thumb carefully to the stranger's eyelid and lifted, peering closely at the iris.

Blue. _Dark_ blue. Interesting.

Sherlock lowered the fragile skin and ran a few fingers down the bridge of the man's nose, feeling the smooth change from bone to cartilage, the way the end of his nose turned up rather than lie flat. The skin at his jaw was slightly rough, catching on his gloves as his hand travelled from chin to ear. The man was older, then, if he shaved; Mycroft shaved in the mornings before work too, but it wasn't something he himself had to worry about yet. Even the cheekbones were different, softer and less defined than his own, and the shape of his ear—

The body under his inspection gave a shuddery inhale, eyelids flickering, and before he could fully register anything beyond the sudden suffocating pressure rising in his throat, Sherlock scrambled for the frying pan and swung.

Silence fell again as his roaring pulse gradually returned to its normal rate and his eyes darted between light-but-dark hair and the improvised weapon in his grip. He scowled. That was _not_ what he'd wanted to do, but his hand had just _moved_, and...damn and blast. He hadn't done anything that impulsive in years.

Furious with himself and fully prepared to indulge in another sulk, Sherlock threw himself onto his arse and relinquished his frying pan to the floor. Then his eyes landed on the abandoned bag innocently lying not too far away.

What had this man stolen that made breaking into an unknown house seem like a good idea?

He snatched up the bag with a fair amount of curiosity, grabbing warm metal with one hand and tearing the cloth off with the other.

What on earth...?

It was obnoxiously bright, reflecting the sunlight streaming through his window in pointedly painful ways until Sherlock scooted out of range so he could see it properly. Undoubtedly horridly expensive, the metal was most likely that silver material his brother had told him about before, a curved, almost triangular plane of thin, intricate whorls forged into a not-quite circle and dotted with deep blue and green...things. Were those stones? The larger three at centre front were pale blue, but he'd never seen stones in colours this pure, blue, green, or otherwise.

The piece was obviously decorative, but what was it _for_? What was its _purpose_? Nana used to have jewellery that looked somewhat like this, delicate and fancy, but without the stones. It must be some sort of _fashion_ thing then, to be worn on the person. Built wrong for a necklace or bracelet, but it had the same shape as a ring if on a much bigger scale, so it must...

He twisted around to stare at the mirror over his desk.

No. People didn't really wear such gaudy things on their _heads_, did they? That was ridiculous. What use was that?

Pushing himself to his feet, Sherlock headed over to his desk and paused in front of his reflection. There was scepticism written all over his face as he reached up and settled the silver whatever-it-was over his hair and stared.

It looked...odd, to say the least. The metal's weight felt abnormally heavy on his head, and the blue stones made his eyes stand out a bit more, but why anyone would want to wear this for any period of time was beyond him. The thing seemed overly dressy and useless and if it had been his, he'd have been happy to have it stolen. Good riddance.

Annoyed now, he yanked it off and returned it to the bag, then briefly analysed the prone figure on his floor. If the man had gone through even half as much trouble as Sherlock suspected he had, then this absurd trinket clearly meant something to him, for whatever reason. Which meant it could potentially be used as leverage.

He deliberated for a brief moment, casting his eyes around his room for an appropriate hiding spot before deciding downstairs had better options. All he had here were the drawers in his desk and his wardrobe, and those places were in plain sight. No good at all.

Perhaps under the loose second step? No, there was a noticeable gap in the construction; anything could be seen there if you looked at the right angle.

What if he didn't hide it downstairs?

A smirk spread over his features as he stole out of his room and down the staircase, hair snaking quietly behind him as he headed straight for the loose tile in the kitchen. Unless the man had some secret knowledge of their floor plans, which he obviously didn't since he'd entered through the window and not the door, there was no way he would ever find...wait. How had he even reached the window?

Sherlock froze in the process of setting the bag and its contents on the stone stairs under the floor that his brother always refused to climb.

That was the first thing he should have looked at! This whole situation was throwing him off-balance. Just because this was the first human being he'd ever laid eyes on besides Mycroft and Nana didn't mean he had to be all out of sorts about it.

_How_ did that man get to his window? He had to have climbed, but he didn't have nearly enough _hair_, so how did he do it?

He shoved the tile hurriedly into its proper place and raced back up the stairs two at a time, hair flying behind him as he crossed the room and stepped over the stranger to lean excitedly out the window. Glancing up automatically, he checked the wrought iron hook secured in the support beam overhead, the one he utilized in order to bring Mycroft inside before the window was closed, but there was no evidence of it having been used. How did—there!

There were two lengths of wood, one jammed into either side of the expansive wooden frame. They were extremely small in diameter and cylindrical in shape, with a dark tip at one end and some kind of feathered material at the other.

Staring closely at the left one, Sherlock gave it an experimental tug. It resisted, but a second effort released the sharp, triangular point embedded in the older wood. More metal, it looked like, strong and durable and containing several wicked-looking barbs. Barring the existence of unscientific powers, these must have also been used not just on the window's frame, but also on the walls somehow.

The stone blocks surrounding his windowsill didn't appear very accommodating for that purpose, really.

He ran a hand over the uneven, sun-warmed surface, feeling out the edges and pushing into crevices with the pads of his fingers. So he'd taken advantage of the spaces _between_ the blocks, then? And climbed the entire way like that? Brilliant.

A grin flashed across his face, excitement flooding through his veins as he glanced from the peculiar object in his hands to the man who'd used them.

It was interesting that these things had been capable of holding the man's weight, even with their sturdy construction. Although he was shorter than Sherlock, by quite a lot if his estimate was correct, the stranger still weighed a good deal more. Not to mention the design of these sticks were patently intended to be aerodynamic and launched at high velocity by another contraption, as they were rather useless on their own. They weren't meant to be used for scaling walls at all.

Oh, that was brilliant. Mad, but brilliant, and now things were _really_ getting interesting. A little chat with the man wouldn't do any harm, surely.

He smirked, eyes bright, and peeled off his gloves.

Minutes later found his uninvited guest strapped to his makeshift lab table with Sherlock settled in the rafters like a restless, hair-trailing bird of prey, frying pan tucked under his arm. It was easier to knock someone out than it was to revive them, apparently, and without clear solutions he opted to watch and wait lest he unintentionally destroy more of the man's brain cells.

But he did so hate waiting.

He'd rifled through the other man's pockets in his impatience, discovering nothing more than a hastily folded paper bearing a truly atrocious sketch of what was presumably the man himself with the name _John Watson_ inked at the bottom, a third arrow, and a suspiciously heavy, well-made cloth coin purse.

The coins were strange and varied in size, some aged, some new, stamped with a variety of images: the profiles of a bearded man and a smaller woman, both wearing similar head jewellery; what looked like a large, oddly built house; a nondescript man riding a horse while carrying some sort of weapon; a lantern with lines meant to represent radiating light; and if he correctly remembered the small amount of herbology Mycroft had taught him, a single plant from the genus Hemerocallis, most likely Hemerocallis fulva, or 'Kwanso', judging by the shape and sheer number of curled petals. He made sure to examine them closely since Mycroft was careful not to leave money out in the open, but overall there was nothing particularly _interesting_ about them. So instead he was stuck analysing himself.

There was an odd vibration running under his skin that he didn't like, and he didn't have a name for it. Conflicting, insensible urges clashed violently in his mind—_hide, look, stay out of range, move closer, don't be seen_—but he wanted to see this. Something different, something new.

For now, Sherlock could control the situation. Where the man was, what he did, when, but the moment he awoke that control disappeared. He didn't know what the man would say, or the mannerisms he had, or how he'd react to being tied to a table. Desk. Piece of furniture. He didn't like the idea of giving up that control, every instinct screamed against it, but he wanted to _know_.

A low groan met his ears and he tensed in uneasy anticipation, gaze darting back to the body several meters below his hiding place.

The man's eyelids drifted open to half-mast, mind clearly re-adjusting to being conscious. Then he attempted to move, the tension in his limbs evident as they tried and failed to press against the restraints, and Sherlock could pinpoint the exact moment when the stranger realised something wasn't right. The pause, the furrowing of his brow; the man's thoughts were practically spelled out across his face for the world to see as he ran a brief evaluation of his current status and his eyes widened.

"Oh _hell_," the man muttered.

The voice wasn't as deep as his own; Sherlock had noticed that earlier when he'd climbed through the window. Was that normal? Was there as much variation in vocal pitch and timbre as there seemed to be in hair colour? In height?

"Not quite," Sherlock responded, fighting the nagging, jittery feeling in his stomach that insisted he should stay where he was. "Though you won't be going anywhere for a while."

The man's head tilted back, an unfamiliar expression on his features as he searched for the location of the voice.

"Are you John Watson?" asked Sherlock curiously.

Dark blue eyes narrowed. "Who wants to know?"

Sherlock decided this conversation would be far more interesting on the ground than up in the rafters. He dropped to the floor with a practiced movement, landing in a crouch that made his feet ache and his knees burn. Then he straightened up guardedly, fingers tightening on the metal frying pan, staying a safe distance away as he met the other man's eyes.

The stranger stared at him, face going slack with disbelief before glancing down at the restraints wrapped across his chest, down the length of his body, and around his wrists. "What—are—" His gaze darted back to Sherlock. "Is this all _your_ hair? You tied me up with _hair_?"

Sherlock raised an eyebrow. "Obviously."

His guest looked as though he was searching for words and couldn't find the ones he wanted, staring at him, incredulous. "I have to admit, this is a bit kinky, even for me," he said finally, giving the teen an assessing look.

Frowning, Sherlock ran through his memory bank and confirmed that he didn't recognize the word 'kinky'. "What?"

"How old are you, anyway? You're pretty tall for your age, but you're what, maybe sixteen?" the man went on, brow furrowing while he eyed Sherlock up and down as best he could from his current position. Sherlock almost took a step back. "As an adult, I can't really condone this; do you have any idea what you're doing? This really isn't something kids should be messing around with—"

"I'm eighteen today!" Sherlock snarled, bewildered and furious at not having the faintest idea what the man was talking about. All people weren't this aggravating, were they? "I'm not a _kid_!"

"So…" The man lifted his eyebrows, drawing the word out like he was waiting for an answer. "I'm a birthday present, is that it?"

"You broke into my _room_," Sherlock retorted heatedly, eyes narrowing as he hefted the frying pan slightly higher in his right hand and moved closer. "As an _adult_, I can't really _condone that_ as appropriate behaviour."

The other man opened his mouth to respond, paused, and apparently thought better of it. "Ah," he said. "Right." His gaze dropped warily to the metal object now in plain sight. "That's not the reason I have a blooming migraine right now, is it?"

Sherlock whipped the pan out in front of him like the weapon he was using it as.

Tensing on the table, the stranger adopted a strange expression Sherlock couldn't identify. "You—tell me you didn't. You can't hit someone with that; what on earth are you thinking! Did you hit me with that?"

"Twice," said Sherlock smugly, his arms perfectly steady. "And I _will_ do it again. So I would advise you to do as I say."

Silence fell as the other man stilled on the table, eyes moving between Sherlock's face and the frying pan, and the wheels turning in his head were plain as day.

After a few moments, Sherlock asked, "Why are you here?"

There was a pause. "I was playing a game," the other man said finally.

"A game." Sherlock repeated flatly.

"Mmm, called…uh, hide and seek. Have you heard of it?"

Sherlock stared at him.

"You know, the one where you get a group together, one person hides, and everyone else tries to find him?"

"…that's a _game_?" asked Sherlock with a frown.

"Yup. And I was the one hiding when I saw this place, and figured it'd be as good as any other spot I could find."

"And 'everyone else' is looking for you?"

"Yup."

"And who exactly is 'everyone else'?"

"Just a…few mates of mine."

"'Mates'?"

He got an odd look in response. "Friends, you know. Sort of."

"Really."

"Really."

Sherlock's gaze narrowed. "Are they looking for _you_, or for what you took from them?"

"Well, both, actu—"

The stranger's words broke off abruptly. His face went unaccountably blank, eyes widening and darting around what little he could see of the room, as that unnameable expression rose up in his features again.

How intriguing.

"What—where—oh no. _No_. What did you do with it!"

Sherlock cocked his head at him, raising an eyebrow. "'It' is such an ambiguous pronoun," he replied.

"The _crown_," the man shouted, features now shifting into a recognizable frustration. "The bloody _crown_, what did you—" his eyes landed on something behind Sherlock. "You went through my pockets?"

A ridiculous question like that didn't warrant an answer, surely.

"You're a thief," commented Sherlock casually, gaze sharp and evaluating.

His guest huffed in impatience as he wriggled slightly on the table, testing the strength of the hair wrapped around him. "I prefer the term 'Cracksman', thanks," he snarked. "'Thief' has too many negative connotations associated with it, I've found."

Sherlock backed up a little, letting his fingers play along the lip of the pan. "And your name is John Watson?"

"Not if you're going by _that_ hideous sketch," John retorted, eyes glancing meaningfully at the folded paper to his left. "Those ears aren't even anatomically correct, you know."

Sherlock ignored him. "And you climbed all the way up to my window only using those curious sticks—"

"Arrows, they're called 'arrows'."

"—to avoid being caught. Your only intent was to hide, which means you'll be in a good bit of trouble if they find you, what you stole is _very_ valuable, or both," Sherlock mused, fingers flexing on his metal cooking instrument.

John frowned at him. "It's a _crown_; of course it's valuable. You did get a look at it, didn't you? And there's no way you knew I only wanted to hide."

Impatiently, the younger man gave him an irritated glance. "You didn't even bother to check if the room was occupied, so clearly burgling the place wasn't a priority. The first thing you did was check the condition of the crown and remark on how much trouble it brought you in the course of acquiring it, indicating its importance and value to you. It wasn't exactly a leap of logic to work that out."

Honestly, the man had practically broadcast his lack of plan from the very moment he entered. Did he do everything that way?

"Alright yes, you're right, absolutely right," John conceded with a tired sigh that made Sherlock frown.

"Of course I'm right," Sherlock interrupted, nonplussed.

John ignored him in favour of staring at the ceiling with a rather pointed look of sadness. "That crown is important to me. It's a family heirloom, you know."

"An heirloom…?" the eighteen year old repeated, letting the word roll around on his tongue. What an odd word.

"Been in the family for ages and everything," his hostage continued, glancing at the boy hovering at his side.

"You're playing a game with an heirloom," Sherlock said slowly, "because—"

"I'm returning it to its rightful owner," John said.

"So you're stealing back something that was stolen?"

"Yes, yes exactly."

"Who's the owner?"

John stared at Sherlock, tongue darting out to moisten his lower lip as his eyes drifted away. "Er…he's a…a nice bloke, I suppose."

"Is he now?" Sherlock asked, bored, examining the edge of the frying pan.

"Fantastic guy, really. A bit on the quiet side; doesn't say much. Doesn't go out much, either."

Sherlock eyed him for several long moments until it became clear John didn't like the silence. "You're a horrid liar," he observed finally, resolving to remember all the little tics that presented themselves when the man lied. Mycroft didn't have any tics. That was probably because Mycroft didn't lie.

John scowled at him. "Just give it back, alright? I worked hard to get that and I'm not about to just let you run off with it!"

Run off…

Sherlock's eyes travelled back to his open window and it wasn't long before his feet followed. There was the same view every time he looked—grass, trees in the distance, stream to the left—and it only changed minutely with the seasons. Without the ability to touch it, it had never really meant more to him than a painting, or an image of what was just outside his reach, but now…now John had walked through it and was in his room and he was real, so if _he_ was real than what was _outside_ had to be real.

"Oi!"

John must have come through those trees in order to see the tower, and to steal the crown there must have been another house or person or _something_ out there to take from. And coming from that direction—Sherlock spun around so he was facing the appropriate way, ignoring the hair twining around his ankles and tried to imagine what the man on his lab table would have seen as he approached the tower—he'd have walked through the trees, with the stream on his right and the tower directly in front, and beyond that…beyond that…

What was beyond that? His world ended at the tower; what was beyond the tower? He didn't know. The windows were only on one side and the skylight wasn't large enough for Sherlock to squeeze through (oh, how he'd tried on more than one occasion) and suddenly it was unimaginably important: _what was on the other side of the tower_?

"What's on the other side?" Sherlock demanded, striding back over to John so he could see the man's face.

John's expression wrinkled into something Sherlock didn't have a name for, but it was obvious the question was going to have to be repeated. "Sorry?" John asked. "The other side of what?"

"The tower!" Sherlock snapped impatiently, waving a hand haphazardly in the direction of the far wall in a worrisome way that made John cringe away from the frying pan. "What else would I be talking about? Don't be stupid, John, the tower—what's beyond the tower?"

The thief just looked at him with a faintly puzzled air, sort of like how Mycroft had looked when Sherlock asked why he hadn't been born with wings so he could fly back when he was four. A sort of _you are a strange, strange little boy_ look that had grated even before he'd understood what it meant.

"You…don't know what's on the other side of this place?" replied John, and Sherlock was starting to get tired of all these expressions he didn't understand. Then John's eyes narrowed suspiciously. "What does this have to do with me getting my crown back?"

With uncanny speed, the frying pan was drawn back into prime swinging position and ready for action.

"Tell me," Sherlock hissed with the fear-inspiring rage that can only be born from single-minded determination, "what is on the _other side of the tower_!"

"Mountains," John blurted out immediately, wide eyes focused on the pan. "Just mountains, lots and lots of them that just go on forever; Christ, please don't hit me with that again, alright? They're just bloody mountains."

"Mountains…" Sherlock breathed, straightening up and dropping the frying pan with a clang that didn't even register to his thrilled mind. "There are mountains on the other side of this wall…"

"Are you alright?" John's voice filtered into his brain in a judiciously measured sort of way as Sherlock fairly _flew_ to the wall in question. "I didn't think I could get any more uncomfortable, but this just definitely changed my mind."

"I want to see them," decided Sherlock almost wonderingly, running his hands over the cold stone as though attempting to feel the mountains through his bedroom wall.

Sherlock tuned John out as the man muttered something incomprehensible about vision and x-rays and inappropriate touching.

John had been on the other side of those trees and seen the mountains, and Mycroft wouldn't be back for several days. He had a very small window of opportunity at his disposal and no intention of losing it. He had what John wanted and John was capable of taking him where he wanted to go. They could leave and come back and Mycroft didn't even have to know he was gone.

Maybe he'd get what he wanted for his birthday after all.

"John," said Sherlock softly, turning in a slow arc to stare at the man tied to his table.

Freezing, John kept his eyes locked on the ceiling.

"John," Sherlock reiterated as he drew alongside the table again. "What would you be willing to do to get your crown back?"

Dark blue eyes snapped over to him, the light-dark brows above them rising incrementally. "We don't know each other nearly well enough for _that_," he retorted firmly. "You do realize I'm not in Mrs. Warren's profession, don't you?"

With a frown, Sherlock asked, "What?"

"I nick things," the other man said carefully, and Sherlock got the irritable feeling that this was John's correct-the-small-child's-unfortunate-misconception voice. "I don't…_you know_. Not for pay, at any rate."

"No, I don't know," Sherlock replied flatly, staring unflinchingly at the smaller man tied to his table. "What is it you don't do for pay, John?"

There was a heavy silence as they both stared at each other, John's eyebrows drawing together in a strange sort of slow-motion as the blank expression on Sherlock's face told him all he needed to know.

"How old are you, again?" asked John slowly, his tone a little too shrewd and disbelieving for Sherlock's liking.

The younger of the two simply rolled his eyes in impatience and decided the turn this conversation was taking was pushing things a little off track.

"I want you to take me to the…city." He declared. Mycroft had mentioned one that he sometimes went to for business-related reasons, so it had to be reasonably close by—

He was completely unprepared for when John started laughing.

The burst of sound caught Sherlock by surprise as it echoed curiously around the room, the amused exhalations of air sounding uncomfortably loud and foreign trapped within the confines of a roof and four walls. Mycroft wasn't one for laughter, and it had been years since he'd heard anything even remotely similar—his brother's idea of showing hilarity was a raised eyebrow and the slight upward movement of a corner of his mouth. When was the last time he'd laughed with his brother?

The sound was captivating even as it faded and John choked out a response over some persistent chuckles.

"_Back to the City_," John dissolved back into what was disturbingly close to giggles. "I don't know why you'd ask that, but there's no bloody way I'm going back to the City."

"John—"

"I'm not sure how you don't understand this, but I stole a _crown_," the man chortled. "I'm not really on good terms with the City at the moment. Probably won't ever be again."

"That's—"

"And what's wrong with you going on your own? You've got two legs, haven't you? Just walk back the way I came—through the trees, into the forest, avoid the crazy horse—"

"It wasn't a _request_, John Watson." Voice hard and cold, Sherlock cut him off with an accompanying glare that could deep-freeze the sun. "I have never left this tower and now you are here, and you are going to take me to this city. Then you will bring me back. That is my price, and it is not negotiable."

The silence that followed his words would have been empowering if Sherlock had been able to name that feeling and hadn't been so impatient for a response.

"And what if I say 'no'?" John asked finally, his expression guarded.

Sherlock scowled. "Then you will remain here, on that table, until my brother returns."

"That's not so—"

"He will be gone for at least three days. And since I'm easily bored, I will most likely resort to experimenting on your person in the meantime. Are you saying that would be a preferable alternative?"

John gaped at him, clearly searching his face for any signs of humour and unsurprisingly, finding none. "What?"

"That is what will happen," snapped Sherlock, his eyes narrowing in frustration, "if you say 'no'."

They stared at each other for several long seconds in a battle of wills before John conceded that he literally wasn't in a position to effectively impose his will on anyone.

"Alright," Sherlock's hostage said slowly, clearly turning his situation over in his head. "Let me get this straight. You're asking me to play tour guide in return—"

"Play what?" Sherlock interrupted, frowning.

John huffed at the ceiling in exasperation. "You want me escort your under-aged arse—"

Sherlock bristled in indignation. "I'm eighteen!"

"—to the City," John continued loudly, "so you can have a look around and see what's there, and then you want me to bring you back to this place and…what? Help you back inside?"

The frown on Sherlock's face shifted into the brightest expression of excited satisfaction John had ever seen. On anything. "Precisely," he agreed.

"And then I'll get my crown back?"

"Yes."

"And you won't let me off this table unless I agree to do this."

"Yes."

John heaved a sigh and turned his head to look at him. "Yes, alright. Fine. You've got yourself a bloody deal."

Eyes widening, Sherlock didn't bother to restrain himself from beaming and leaping with delight. "Wonderful! Ahh, this is brilliant!"

"I would shake on it, but…you know," John said, trying to peer down his arms to where his hands presumably were. "They're a bit tied up at the moment."

Sherlock grinned at him. "I'll just have to take your word for it."

"Hmmm, yeah," John said musingly, his eyes roving across the murals on the ceiling. "Not a good idea, that."

Sherlock ignored him as he whirled around the room, gleefully flouncing over to the window, to the desk which held John's possessions, and then back to the table.

"Right. Well, I suppose I should release you now," the younger man informed John, his voice making it clear that he didn't really fancy that idea at all.

"That'd be nice," John replied neutrally.

With a reluctant noise, Sherlock reached up to run his hands over his scalp in the act of pulling his hair into a tail, his left hand halting at the base of his skull and his right following the flow of hair for a metre or so before giving it a generous yank. Instantaneously, the ginger makeshift rope wrapped itself from around John's prone form, a good amount of it flying towards Sherlock once it was untangled.

Immediately John sat up, one hand automatically rising to the back of his abused head, but his eyes were wide and incredulous. "What the bloody hell?"

Sherlock raised an eyebrow.

"What is—is your hair _sentient_?" John demanded.

Staring, Sherlock attempted to discern what would have led John to ask such a thing and failed. "What?"

John shook his head. "It just…it _moves_ like it has a life of its own."

"Don't be ridiculous," said Sherlock disdainfully.

"I'm not!" John insisted. "How do you even—you just pulled on it and it _unravelled_ around me—"

"Yes, well," Sherlock said impatiently, "if you hadn't _cut your hair_, you'd be able to do the same."

"What? No," argued John, pushing himself gingerly off the table. "Hair just doesn't do that, it—"

"Are you going to natter on about my hair, or shall we get going?"

John's brow furrowed the way Mycroft's did when Sherlock was being particularly difficult. "You want to leave right now?"

"No, I was thinking in a fortnight or so," Sherlock said nastily, glaring at the other man as he strode over to the window. He took a moment to pull all his hair along with him. "Of course I want to leave now. Don't be stupid."

Scowling, John crossed his arms over his chest and refused to budge. "Where do you think you're heading off to? You can't go anywhere dressed like that."

Sherlock paused and took a moment to assess himself. "What's wrong with what I'm wearing?" he asked, turning back to look at John.

"You haven't got any footwear, for one," remarked John, eyeing the younger man's feet. "Haven't you got boots, or something?"

"Superfluous," Sherlock declared, frowning. "What would I need boots for?"

"Gee, I dunno," John deadpanned. "For walking around outside, maybe?"

Sherlock stared at him blankly.

"So your feet don't hurt when you step on stones or sticks or hot objects?" the other man added, his tone of voice gradually changing from pointed aggravation to tentative bewilderment at Sherlock's lack of comprehension.

The blank stare expanded into a _people are actually idiotic enough to do that?_ expression.

"It's not like we do it on purpose," John exclaimed defensively. "It's unavoidable; it just happens. Haven't you ever done that?"

Sherlock cast a sceptical look at the cold stone floor. "No."

"You're having me on," John huffed, giving the dark-haired man a dirty look. "Everyone's done it at some point."

"Do you _see_ any sticks and stones lying around in here?" snapped Sherlock.

"What's that got to do with anything?" John snapped back. "I'm talking about outside, not indoors."

"I haven't been outside—"

"Long enough to forget what it feels like?"

"—_ever_," Sherlock snarled. "Never ever. I have never been outside, I have never walked on grass, or stones, or sticks. I have lived my entire life in this house, from the moment I was born, painting on my walls and reading books, and wondering what that strange place outside my window was like. And now I have the opportunity to find out and you will not stop me with petty reasoning like _boots_!"

His raised voice echoed menacingly off the hard stone walls, taking a few moments to die away as their gazes stayed locked on each other.

"Piss off," said John slowly after several drawn-out seconds. "You want me to believe you've never set foot outside this place, and now you want me to take you to the City?"

"Glad you're finally catching on," said Sherlock derisively, leaning out the window to examine the hook embedded in the overhang outside his windowsill. It was a little rusty from disuse, but still seemed solid. Probably would still hold his weight, at least.

John stormed over to Sherlock's desk and snatched up his arrows and coin pouch, eyes darting searchingly around the room for anything that would catch the sunlight.

"You won't find it," Sherlock called calmly without looking over his shoulder, looping his hair over the metal hook.

Instead he looked down at the ground far below, where he would soon be standing. He used to haul Mycroft in through his window before it got sealed; only now he'd be lowering himself out. That was a good ways down though, wasn't it? Huh. He could have sworn the ground was a good bit closer the last time he'd seen it. A disturbingly uncomfortable feeling fluttered in his stomach and shivered in his lungs as he forced himself to climb out onto the window ledge.

"Right," John said irritably, stuffing the pouch into his jacket and examining his arrows. "Let's just get this over with, shall we? I can show you how to use these to get down, though I can't imagine you'd be able to do it without killing yourself, so—"

He turned around just in time to watch Sherlock tumble himself off the ledge.

"BLOODY BUGGERING FUCK!"

John's shrieks followed the younger man out the window, although they were nearly lost in the deafening roar of air rushing past his ears. Bright ginger hair sped through his hands as he plummeted through space, blurring in front of his eyes, the earth rushing up to meet him.

"WHAT THE—JESUS CHRIST! ARE YOU TRYING TO SEND ME INTO CARDIAC ARREST, YOU _STUPID_ WANKER? BLOODY HELL, WHAT IS WRONG WITH—"

Sherlock tightened his grip on his hair, jerking hard to an abrupt stop, and waited for his internal organs to crawl out of his pelvis and resituate themselves. Then he willed his suddenly-closed eyes open, taking in the alien-ness of his surroundings despite his pounding heart. Reaching out with one un-booted foot, he felt around for some sort of stability and his bare skin brushed against something unfamiliar.

Staring awe-struck at his feet, Sherlock watched as first one foot, then the other, established themselves on the grass, the sensation completely foreign as his toes reflexively curled into the sun-warmed soil.

He was finally out of the tower.


End file.
